


Counting Down

by Vamillepudding



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Asexual Character, Concussions, Happy Ending, Internalized Acephobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 10:43:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: Jon has had The Conversation with a grand total of five people so far. Four out of five times, it ended the relationship immediately. One time, it was only one out of many factors that ended the relationship further down the line.It stands to reason then that the problem lies not with his – partners –, but with him.That’s okay. Jon has made his peace with that. He doesn’t need to – he’s fine. He’sfine.So what happens when Martin asks him out?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 74
Kudos: 1673





	Counting Down

There is a timer in Jon’s head. It’s years old by now, restarted frequently and stopped just as often. Most of the time he doesn’t think about it.

The timer has been counting down for two days, three hours, and six – no, seven minutes. Ever since Martin came into his office and said, first hesitatingly, then growing more confident as he went on, _So, I know you’re really busy and all, and last month I overheard you saying that I should have been fired ages ago which, really not cool by the way, but anyway, you brought me that cup of tea last week and I think you almost smiled at me a little? And I know my standards are really low at this point, but I just thought, what have I got to lose, right? Except my dignity. And my job, I suppose, though I don’t think – well, anyway, I guess what I’m asking is, would you like to have dinner some time?  
_

Jon had stared, turned off the recorder, then stared some more. Finally, when the silence became stifling, he’d said, _Okay_.

And the countdown had started.

He doesn’t know the exact time, is the thing. That’s always been a problem – his whole life he’s been perfectly aware that there will be problems down the line, but he’s never known exactly when those problems would arise. Usually he manages not to think about it too much, but it’s always in the back of his mind, a hundred tiny pricks of anxiety for a hundred potential crises.

This crisis is just more imminent than most. He’s avoided it so far, but at some point him and Martin are going to have to have The Conversation. And – well, Jon is a scientist, right? (He _is_.) He can’t deny the facts. He can’t deny evidence.

Here’s what he knows:

He has had The Conversation with a grand total of five people so far. Four out of five times, it ended the relationship immediately. One time, it was only one out of many factors that ended the relationship further down the line.

It stands to reason then that the problem lies not with his – partners –, but with him.

That’s okay. Jon has made his peace with that. He doesn’t need to – he’s fine. He’s _fine_.

He was fine for over two years before Martin asked him out. And now that he did, well. The clock is ticking, and Jon only has himself to blame.

***

For all of Jon’s worrying, it occurs to him at some point that they never actually agreed on a specific date for getting dinner.

This presents a new problem, because it’s been three days now and apparently Martin is waiting for Jon to make the next move. Little does Martin know that Jon has never, not once in his life, ‘made the next move’ for anything. It’s not so much that he doesn’t know how and more that he simply forgets, and keeps on forgetting until it’s too late. On one memorable occasion his roommate in college broke up with him citing ‘communication issues’ as the main problem. Jon hadn’t been aware that they’d been dating.

Nothing about this Martin-situation is new. The only difference is that this time Jon actually wants it to work out.

He spends long sleepless hours each night in bed in the feeble attempt to come up with ways to ask Martin, _Are we still on for dinner?_ without making it sound like he’s asking Martin if they’re still on for dinner.

Perhaps he would have gone on agonising over this for years and years, were it not for Tim barging into his office on day four after The Question. There’s nothing particularly weird about this yet – Tim always barges in anywhere and everywhere, either not familiar with the concept of knocking or merely ignoring it.

What is weird however is that Tim, once finished slamming the door against the wall (Jon winces), says, “We’re going for lunch.”

“We are?” Jon asks, eyebrows rising on their own account. He clears his throat. “I mean. We’re not. I’m very busy.” His hand covers the doodle of a tree climbing a cat that he’d been drawing on one of the files in front of him, feeling his ears burn.

“Suit yourself, but I think Elias is looking-“ Tim starts, and Jon is out of his chair before he’s finished with “-for you. Right.”

They go to the sandwich place down the road and secure one of the tables by the window looking out at the street. A waitress takes their order, winking at Tim as she does it. Jon only barely manages not to look scandalised.

“I thought you and Finnegan from research were-“ he starts, because he can’t not, but leaves the sentence hanging in the air because he also really can’t. Part of him wants to blame it on his upbringing, but a much bigger part of him suspects that it has nothing to do with his grandmother’s distaste for inappropriate questions and everything to do with who he is.

“We are,” Tim says with a shrug. “It’s no big deal. Just a bit of fun, you know?”

Jon does not know. It’s entirely possible that Jon has never had ‘just a bit of fun’ in his entire life.

His discomfort must speak for itself since Tim lets it go. They eat their sandwiches in silence, which is Jon’s preferred state of being anyway, and it’s not until they’re on their way back to the institute that Tim very, very casually says, “So what’s up with you and Martin?”

“Nothing,” Jon says quickly and realising his mistake immediately, but it’s too late, Tim is already grinning.

“Really, boss? Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“That’s not-“

“I’m very impressed. You’ve impressed me.”

“Tim-“

“And I won’t tell Elias. My lips are sealed.”

“You don’t have to-“ Jon starts, catches himself, and grits out, “Thank you,” instead. “But there isn’t anything to tell.”

“Bullshit,” Tim says, but he says it in a smug way, which only makes Jon want to get out of this conversation more. Agreeing to lunch with Tim was a mistake. _Hiring_ Tim was a mistake. “But that’s alright, I’ll let you play coy. Come on, let’s go inside.”

They’ve arrived in front of the institute without Jon even realising. Tim is already in the process of opening the door when Jon, following an instinct of bravery he hadn’t known he possessed, blurts out, “How would you ask if someone wants to have dinner with you? Theoretically.”

Tim, to his credit, doesn’t laugh, though he looks like trying not to is a challenge. And yet his face is somehow perfectly straight as he replies, “No idea.”

“Oh,” Jon says uncertainly. “Alright then.” His face is already burning, and past experience tells him that he will still randomly remember this moment a decade from now, waking up in the middle of the night and flushing with residue embarrassment.

“No, I mean, I really don’t know. I don’t go to dinner with people. I usually just smile at them. Sometimes I wink. That’s pretty much all it takes because, you know.” Tim vaguely gestures at himself, presumably indicating that he’s so hot that people literally cannot help themselves. Maybe they can’t; Jon has no way of knowing.

“Right.”

“But if I had to, I guess I’d just ask?”

“Right,” Jon repeats. “This has been-“ he can’t quite bring himself to say helpful. “Educational. Thank you, Tim.”

“There’s no way Martin would say no,” Tim says, just before going inside, calling over his shoulder “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Jon follows him without comment, but all he can think is that people who tell others not to worry about something obviously have never been confronted with the crippling anxiety that comes with Having Feelings.

***

Jon is an arsehole. He usually rates himself at about a 6 on the arsehole scale, with occasional peaks when someone who doesn’t know him very well asks him his honest opinion of something, and with occasional troughs whenever he’s in close proximity of cats.

So far he’s been maybe a 5 overall, although he’s rapidly shooting up all the way to an 8 when Martin brings him tea and then lingers in what is obviously an attempt at conversation, and Jon realises this but just _cannot bring himself to say something_.

(The timer is ticking, ticking, ticking…)

“We don’t have to go to dinner,” Martin says after some time. He sounds very determined. “That’s fine. But you could’ve just told me that that when I asked you.”

(The timer freezes)

Jon, unsure of what he’s done wrong but sure that there’s something, says, “I’m sorry.”

Martin nods. “Right. So, we can just forget this whole thing. Bit silly, anyway. I’ll just get back to that case you wanted me investigating, the one with the disappearing corpse- yeah. Right.”

“I asked you to do that three days ago,” Jon says automatically. It’s not even meant to be criticism, just a statement of fact, but Martin colours anyway, and Jon knows that he’s just gone up to 9. “But take all the time you need,” he hastily adds. “Obviously.”

“Can I ask why though?” Martin asks, still hovering by Jon’s desk. Jon doesn’t mind; rooms tend to improve 100 % by Martin’s presence in them.

“Well, speedy work is desirable but I tend to prefer thoroughness, though both would ideally-“

“No, I mean.” Martin drops his gaze. “Why you changed your mind. About dinner.”

“I didn’t,” Jon says. There are no words to describe how unprofessional this entire conversation is, and his skin crawls at the thought of someone overhearing, but – what? “I rather thought you did.”

“I didn’t! I just, I asked you and you said yes and then you just stared at me so I left, and then you never brought it up again so I assumed you’d just said that to make me feel better.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of trying to make people feel better,” Jon says dazedly. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“So just to be clear,” Martin says, “you still want to have dinner? With me?”

“Obviously with you,” Jon snaps. “I hardly eat dinner on my own, do I?”

He realises that he’s made a tactical error the second that Martin frowns at him. The fear of disappointing others has accompanied him his whole life but, somehow, the fear of disappointing Martin is so much worse. Jon is pretty sure he’s going to have nightmares about Martin’s frown.

“You don’t eat dinner?” Martin asks, managing to make it sound like, _You kill puppies for fun and actually think Shakespeare was a real person?_

“Well,” Jon says and then doesn’t continue, unable to lie but also unable to admit to anything that would make Martin’s disapproval more obvious.

“Okay, so obviously that’s a problem,” Martin says. “We’ll have dinner tonight.” He says it with a rare bit of confidence that’s out of character enough to make Jon blink in surprise, and apparently Martin notices this as well, since he quickly says, “Unless, I mean, unless you have plans already?”

Jon does not have plans already. Jon hasn’t had plans already since college.

Later, finally alone in his office again, he remembers his conversation with Tim and thinks, _So that’s how you ask someone out. You just bully them into it._ It seems as good a plan as any.

***

Jon and Martin do not, in the end, get dinner, though not for lack of trying.

What happens is this:

Martin leaves at 5 with the others, and before Jon has the chance to freak out that Martin has already forgotten, he receives a text that reads ‘just going home to shower, let’s meet at the restaurant in an hour’, followed by another message that has the address attached. Jon, inherently suspicious of Martin’s memory but also painfully aware of the failings of his own, realises in a moment of clarity that there is no way he’s not going to forget if he goes back to work now, so he sets an alarm to ring in 45 minutes and mentally congratulates him on his foresight.

Exactly 45 minutes later, he locks the office and leaves the institute and has only been walking for about five minutes when someone pulls him into a dark alley and holds a knife to his throat.

This is not the first time Jon has been threatened at knife-point. It’s not even the first time he’s been threatened at knife-point this _month_.

He forces himself to relax, taking slow, deliberate breaths to prevent any impending panic attacks, and still flinches when the knife penetrates skin.

“Look,” Jon says, aware that his voice is shaking slightly, “this would be much simpler if you just told me-“ He stops when he feels the blade pressing in closer. Some sort of liquid is dripping down his neck, maybe sweat but just as likely to be blood, and just once Jon would like to have a normal day at work.

“Give me your phone,” his attacker demands. Jon, who has to admit to himself that he’s many things but brave is not one of them, hands it over and can’t stop himself from saying, “If you’re going to call Elias, don’t bother.”

“Shut up,” the guy says, and Jon shuts up. “Your wallet, too, and get a fucking move on.”

Wait. What?

“Sorry, are you _mugging_ me?”

He gets punched in the stomach for that, but he can’t bring himself to care, because honestly. A mugging. This guy has probably never even seen a corpse, or a ghost, or a weird fear entity that feeds on your happiness. This is just some random bloke from the street, going about his daily business stealing people wallets and threatening them with knives, and honestly, if Jon gets killed tonight, he deserves it.

Another punch to the gut knocks the breath out of him and that, at last, gets his attention. He’s going to have bruises tomorrow, Jon numbly thinks while fumbling for his wallet in his coat pockets. He doesn’t have a plan here, now that he’s fairly certain that there is no nefarious plan here. Is he supposed to run? Shout for help? What do ordinary people even _do_ in these situations?

The man flips through his wallet and then says, “Seriously?”

“I’m sorry?”

“10 quid? That’s _all_? Not even any cards?”

Jon has lost his credit card precisely seven days ago. His bank told him a new card would arrive within the week; it is now Friday and nothing has happened yet. On the grand scheme of things, he realises that there’s bigger worries, but this type of inefficiency just grates on him.

Also, he’s now almost entirely out of cash so Martin better have picked something cheap, because-

Martin.

“I apologise for my lack of funds,” he says stiffly, wishing that just for once he’d just be able to talk like a normal person, “but I really have to get going now.”

The mugger laughs, and Jon has one split second of regret, another split second of pain, and then blackness.

***

Jon has always enjoyed learning things. It’s just that generally he would prefer staying on the theoretical side.

Today is a full-on dive into the practical aspects, and Jon always _hated_ swimming.

He learns that

**a.** having a concussion sucks

**b.** no, seriously, having a concussion fucking _sucks_

**c.** trying to get people to let him use their phone is hard

**d.** trying to get people to let him use their phone while being concussed, bruised, and literally bleeding from the neck, is _very_ hard

**e.** trying to remember someone’s number is basically impossible and Jon should really invest in an address book or something

**f.** not even a concussion or a neck wound are enough to distract from the knowledge that right now, while he’s riding in an ambulance that’s way too loud and noisy and makes his head hurt so much worse, Martin is waiting somewhere for him.

***

Jon is allowed to go home at around midnight after several hours spent in the waiting room, another hour getting poked at by doctors, getting pumped full of medication and then lying to the nurses about having someone to monitor his condition. He has to take the tube since he’s got no money for a cab, and arrives in his flat feeling like hell despite the painkillers. He can’t sleep just yet, though. There’s one last thing left to do.

It takes him three tries to enter the password on his laptop and another two tries to log onto his email, but once he does, the rest is really very simple.

Then he falls asleep, right there on the couch, because everything hurts but moving hurts worse, and just the thought of getting up and going to his bedroom makes him want to cry. So he stays where he is.

When he wakes up, Martin is there.

Jon still feel like any movement at all will make his head explode, but at least the room is dark (are the curtains drawn? Is it night? Who knows) and Martin isn’t doing anything but quietly reading, and – _why_ is Martin here?

He tries to ask exactly that. Except his mouth isn’t cooperating, his lips trying and failing to form what should be a very simple phrase, and he just ends up faintly moaning, his face flushing. It succeeds in drawing Martin’s attention though, which is something, he supposes.

“Jon? How are you feeling?”

Jon gives up on talking and waves a hand instead. He’s not sure what he wants to convey with that gesture; either way, Martin gets up and returns with a glass of water.

Jon dutifully drinks a few sips and, when his throat is no longer parched and he doesn’t feel like properly speaking will make him faint or anything equally embarrassing, he says, “Why are you here?”

“Oh. You sent me an email. To be honest, I was surprised you know what an email is, actually.”

Jon considers several responses to this and settles on, “I’m sorry I missed dinner.”

“That’s okay,” Martin says immediately, like Jon had known he would. _That’s okay_ is Martin’s default response to any inconvenience. He’d probably say _That’s okay_ after having his own foot cut off, and then apologise for getting blood on the carpet.

“What did the email say?” Jon asks after a small pause. He can’t imagine it made much sense, not with the state he was in when he got home last night.

“Oh,” Martin repeats, sounding awkward about it. “Mostly gibberish. There were quite a few apologies though, and something about Shakespeare? So I just figured that you were probably either drunk or hallucinating, and came over to check on you.”

“You don’t have a key.”

“The door was open,” Martin says breezily, seemingly unconcerned at this lack of security in Jon’s flat.

“Right,” Jon says. Their brief conversation has done nothing for his headache, and he feels not just his standard level of tiredness, but appears to have entered an entirely new level of thus far unforeseen exhaustion. He doesn’t mean to, but his eyes are falling back shut before he can help it, and then for some while more, there’s blissful silence again.

The next time he wakes, he’s lying half on top of Martin, not cuddling him so much as trapping him on the couch in a way that cannot be comfortable.

Jon moves away like he’s been burned, ready to apologise, but Martin waves him off. “Don’t worry about it. Actually that was already more intimate than I expected this evening to go, so, thanks, I guess?”

And just like that, the timer is back at the forefront of his mind again.

“Martin,” Jon says quietly. He doesn’t want to have this conversation now, not while he’s still concussed, not after he bailed on dinner, just – not now.

Then again, now is as good a time as any.

“About the – about what you said.” The words feel like ash in his mouth, and not just because everything about this is painfully awkward.

Even worse, Martin is actually looking at him now, frowning again, not yet disapproving but in a sort of pre-disapproval state. Jon’s clenched his fists tight enough to leave red marks all over his palms; he forces himself to relax. This shouldn’t be a big deal. This _isn’t_ a big deal. “You should know that I-“

He can’t.

But he has to.

“I suppose you could say that I don’t really. Well. Do that sort of thing.”

It’s out. It’s done. It’s over.

There’s a pause, not very long, but long enough to make Jon consider all the possibilities of what could happen next and realising that he likes none of them, but there’s nothing he can do about it now because it’s too late, too late, too late.

Then Martin says, “What sort of thing?”

And Jon realises that he never actually said the words.

Also, Martin is terrible at reading context clues.

Very slowly, very deliberately, and hating himself so much, Jon says, “I’m afraid that what we just did, or perhaps it would be better to say that what we just didn’t do, that’s all I want. That’s all I can give you.”

Martin stares at him. This in itself isn’t that weird. Martin frequently stares at him, usually either after being given what Jon calls Clear Orders and what Jon has once overheard Martin refer to as Incomprehensible and Unreasonable Requests, or, alternatively, when John microwaves tea.

So Martin-staring isn’t out of the ordinary, except that right now, it seems out of place. In all his experience with The Conversation, no one’s ever just stared before.

Perhaps Martin didn’t hear him right.

“Martin?” Jon asks uncertainly.

“Sorry, sorry,” Martin says, looking sheepish, “got lost in thought. Sorry though, just to clarify, when you say that that’s ‘all you can give me’”- Martin doesn’t make air-quotes but he does attempt what Jon thinks must be a mockery of his accent, “you mean sex?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well, thanks for telling me? I mean, I kind of figured, but- no, I’m doing this all wrong. Thank you for deciding to share that with me,” Martin says.

The words sound rehearsed. In fact, they sound exactly like the appropriate response to coming outs on the website that Georgie had linked him ages ago (it had been called Acing It. Jon has yet to stop finding this almost physically painful).

So Martin has googled asexuality before. This leads Jon to two follow-up questions: first, why, and second, if Martin knows what Google is, then why does Jon keep having to correct him on what is really very, _very_ simple Latin?

Wait. He abruptly realises that he’s got a third question.

“What do you mean, you ‘kind of figured’?” Jon says and actually does use air-quotes because he’s an arsehole.

Martin gestures vaguely at the ceiling. “I just did? No, don’t look at me like that, this isn’t some magic thing, I just noticed some things.”

“What things?”

“Like, I don’t know. Alright, so, one time Tim joked about how hot Elias was and you literally walked into a shelf and gave yourself a black eye-“

“Because he’s our boss, and that’s the most unprofessional-“

“-and, and that other time when we went out for drinks after work and played Never Have I Ever and you just didn’t drink, like, once?”

“I was not participating in the game, as I mentioned at the time, and-“

“- or remember how that woman gave a statement and then gave you her number and you literally said, I’ll put it in the record, _completely_ oblivious?”

“That was-“

“Jon,” Martin interrupts. “You asked how I knew. There were some things, but mostly I just assumed, alright? Why is this such a big problem? I don’t mind.”

This time Jon is the one to stare. “You – don’t?”

“Of course not. I asked you to dinner, not to, to bed or something, alright?”

This is unprecedented. He didn’t plan for this eventuality. First the mugging, now this – Jon finds that for the second time today (in two days? He has no sense of timing anymore), he’s at a loss of what to do.

Because Martin reacted in an entirely unforeseen way.

Because he may have had this conversation before but somehow it’s never properly counted until now.

Because he can’t mess this up.

Because he wants – he just wants. That’s all.

So instead of an answer, Jon kisses him.

He's fairly sure that this is under the top five of stress situations to avoid right now, all neatly summarised in bullet points on the pamphlet the nurse gave him, but Martin makes a small noise (surprise? Enjoyment? Jon will need more evidence to find out) and buries his hands in Jon’s hair so he doesn’t really mind, until-

_Pain. Pain pain pain pain pain_

In his sudden panic to get away from whatever is causing this unexpected agony, he almost flings himself off the couch and only manages to catch himself in the last moment. Stars are dancing in front of his eyes and bile rises in his throat and above it all Martin is staring at his fingertips, now coated in blood, saying, “What the _hell_.”

“So,” Jon says a few minutes later, clutching a new glass of water in his hands and carefully not looking at Martin, “I’ve got a head wound. You should probably, er, try to avoid touching that.”

“Yeah, well, I would have avoided it from the beginning if you had just told me,” Martin snaps. Two angry red blotches have appeared high on his cheeks, and he seems more upset than Jon has ever seen him before. Not that the standards for that were very high. Martin doesn’t like conflict. So far, Jon has seen him raise his voice exactly three times, and each of these was related to minor things such as Jon fainting from low blood pressure, Jon fainting from blood loss after being kidnapped again, and Jon not drinking the tea Martin made for fear of poison.

This right here is a good candidate to become number four.

“I didn’t think it was particularly relevant,” Jon says defensively.

“Not- _how_ could you not think it was relevant? How did this even happen? Do we need to tell Elias?”

“No!” Jon exclaims. Lowering his voice, he continues, “There’s no need. It was just-“ And this right here is exactly why he wanted to avoid this, because it’s so _embarrassing_. “-a rather regular mugging, I’m afraid. Nothing to do with the institute, so there’s no reason to worry.”

“I have your blood on my hands. I have your _actual blood_ on my hands. Who cares if it’s from a mugging or some weird demon thing? Jon, this is – you have to see that this isn’t okay.”

Jon, for all that his job is about seeing, doesn’t see this. But he senses that admitting so would only serve to make Martin even more unhappy, so instead he says, “I’m making tea. If you want some, that is.”

Martin doesn’t immediately reply, which makes Jon go through a whole array of emotions between _Of course he doesn’t want tea_ over _Why would anyone ever want tea from you_ right to _No one is ever going to love you and you’re going to die alone_.

Then Martin says, “I’d love a cuppa, thanks.”

Jon thinks, _Right_.

He makes tea. And while he’s standing in his kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, absently listening to Martin turn on the TV to what sounds like a history documentary, he realises that while Martin is very definitely pissed about the whole concussion thing, he is, inexplicably, utterly indifferent to the - other thing.

The timer has stopped and Jon has come out on the other side unscathed (a first for him, really), and now they’re going to have a horrible and unpleasant conversation about checking oneself out of hospitals too early, but maybe, after that, they’ll switch to a conversation about getting breakfast together instead. Make up for the lost dinner, perhaps.

That, Jon thinks, would be nice.

But first they drink tea.


End file.
